January 25, 2024 • 47 mins
Cody hips the gang to a disturbing death in Missouri. Mysteria writes in to respond to the earlier questions about small-town corruption. LJB provides some insight from Australia. All this and more in this week's listener mail segment.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Alexis code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
you are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. It is Thursday, as the humans
reckon their weeks, which means it is time for one
of our most exciting evenings on the show. We get
(00:51):
to join you, our fellow conspiracy realist, and share your
stories with everyone else. We're going to get some insight
from our friends down under. We're going to have some
responses to an earlier question about local corruption. We're also
going to have some letters from home, and a look
(01:14):
at an ongoing disappearance which occurred quite recently. But before
we do any of that, we talked about this off air.
We thought we would start with the fun stuff because
there is a letter that absolutely delighted all of us.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
I think, right, oh yeah, it's always nice to get
correspondence from our pals down Under, especially when it comes
to calling us on things that we perhaps didn't get
quite right about their beautiful and dare I say dangerous homeland.
We know it's Melbourne. I think we've we've checked that
(01:49):
one off the list. And then here's the thing. These
are always good natured. They're always if there's any ribbing,
these Aussies, they tend to have a very good sense
of humor. I really appreciate that about them, and this
is no exception. We got quite a cavalcade of things
to run through with this email from LJB starts like
this high conspiracy team fascinated by your pot on the
(02:11):
bun Yip and beyond. Thank you and thanks also for
shining a light on our amazingly beautiful and unique land
animals and biomes. For your listeners. You asked for opinions comments,
So here you go. Jmho what is that one? Guys?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Just by a humble opinion?
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Oh geez, so much cool than me. It took me
a while to even figure out what TLDR meant. Jmahoe
Outback Steakhouse. Sadly, even though I have made two brief
visits to your lands some years ago. I never had
the opportunity to visit, so can't comment. Apologies. I think
we post the question of hey, are their outback steakhouses
(02:47):
in Australia, to which we found there were a couple,
and b do they get it right? I would pause
it probably not Crocodile Dundee. Although a popular comedian actor
in his day, Paul Hogan's Crocodile Dundee is pretty cringeworthy.
Agreed his comedy was unsophisticated and left many of us
in despair. I see, But at the end of the day,
(03:09):
if people found it funny, why not be amused? That's
that Ausie spirit. There are very auker Aussies. Yes, that
ss says Z. But I don't know. Oker. Is it
Ochre or Ocker? Oker? The colors of color? I'm gonna
go with Oker for now. Who would identify and potentially
sound like him? Irl? So that must be sort of
like a I don't know. Maybe it reminds me of
(03:32):
kind of Louisiana French culture, like Bayou folks. You know,
maybe that's sort of an equivalent, but I can't be sure. Fosters,
it's sparely not Australian. For beer. We do not drink Fosters. Ever,
it has the rep as the worst ever brew. Guys,
I have to take a quick pause here. Isn't it
funny though? How people often identify America with things like
(03:55):
bud Light, and we absolutely drink the hell out of
bud Light. Does a country, you know? But then you
know their individual results may vary, I wonder.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Though, But it's a German beer basically, right, well, sure,
fair enough.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
My point is though that it's it's gotten a reputation
as being sort of this like the most basic of
American beers, and it gets their reputation because it is
incredibly popular, and there's a couple other ones you could
add to that list. Foster's, however, being an Australian beer.
I'm sure there are hundreds of other really good Australian beers.
This is the one that just happens to hang their
(04:31):
whole marketing on this overwrought Australian accents. And like, you know,
I don't get regular TV anymore, so I don't know
the commercials are like, but they really lean into that,
and I'm sure they'd folks in their country cringe. And
also of the beer's not very good. Have you guys
ever had a Foster's I never even had one, Do
you like.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Get Maybe I'm misremembering this, but I want to say
Foster's for a time had like this catter can or
is a bigger something.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
It was supposed to look like a little barrel. Yeah,
just just like the earlier or a small keg right,
just so kawhi keg and uh to follow up. Aker
or oker I think means someone with a strong accent.
And the when we talked about outback, there is one.
(05:16):
There's one outback. It's somewhere forgive me, folks. It's somewhere
like the Sydney Airport, and people visit it as a novelty.
I think the Foster's the idea is that if you
call something Australian, you can easily sell it to Americans.
Maybe we should come out with something and call it
the Australian T shirt of stuff they don't want you to.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Why not? Moving on to another person who could probably
be accused of being an auker or oker. Steve Irwin,
kind of the real life crocodile Dundee in some ways
definitely had a similar accent, you know, wore the shorts
kind of the Ranger Smith outfit, so cool, genuine genuine
(05:57):
passion for the outback. And I'll if it's critters and
as we know, and I think we've all remarked upon
what a wild I think biome is exactly the term
to use, just the the stuff that exists there. It
looks like oftentimes stuff you think of as being from
another planet that we just don't have any analog for
a lot of their creatures over here. And Steve Irwin
(06:18):
loved all of them, and in fact, unfortunately I believe
his life was ended by one of them. I believe
he was.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Stunned in the heart by a stingray. Pretty wild, was it?
Kat Williams. Cat Williams has been in the news a
lot recently or social.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
He took some shots and some folks.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I want to say it was him that he had
a great bit about Steve Irwin, like with great respect
to Steve Irwin, but that was the joke that he
got stingray. But like he's over there just literally tackling
crocodiles like it's nothing.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I remember that, Matt. I also remember, so Steve when
occupies for anybody not in the US, Steve Irwin occupies
this amazing position in sort of the American pop culture pantheon.
He's a real life Captain Planet. He has the ability
like a D and D ranger to speak with animals,
(07:14):
dungeons and dragons. Sorry, and I think his child is
also following in his footsteps. He was brought down by
Sting Gray, as we mentioned, but he did so much
for environmental advocacy because he just seems like a really
cool dude, a really good hang. And by the way,
(07:35):
if you were into American hip hop, then you know
that for a while, every every MC was rapping about Yeah,
Steve Irwin, right, Steve Verwin to is Sting Gray a
lighter to an upset Jean Gray shout out to Joe
Budden's song on that Long Summer I think or short summer,
and not a shout out to his podcast.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Just to show up with what LJB said about Steve
very much mirroring what we just we all just fan
boyd out big time again. Quite broad and ocherish, Okay,
there you go. But beloved for his love of and
endless enthusiasm for our critters, particularly the dangerous ones, as
we said, one that ultimately took his life, and I'm
(08:17):
sure he wouldn't have had it in any other way.
But who am I to say? I guess I can't
be sure. His efforts, like you said, Ben, his efforts
of environmental matters and wildlife conservation provided him with great
respect and high regard. His loss is truly felt, but
his legacy survives through his remaining family. Matt, did you
have a Steve Irwin comment?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
It's fine, I've said it on the show before. I
don't have to. I think it was my sixteenth or
seventeenth birthday party. Just to give the little insight on me,
it was a combination matrix Steve Irwin birthday party. You
could dresss either or both.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Okay, that's it.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
That's amazing.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Next we've got Steve Rkle For some reason, LJB is
not even sure why we have Steve Verkle. Apologies. I'm
not sure of the reference here, but yes, Family Matters
was shown on free to air television.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
I think I've mentioned this. This is a reaction, correct
me here. This is a reaction to the classic episode
we published on Cryptids of Australia, and I think as
way leads on the way conversationally, we mentioned Steve Irwin,
which probably led to us mentioning Steve Verkle. Sorry Australia,
(09:23):
did we do that? Sure?
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Got any cheese? It turns out to a little white
as a smoke show. By the way, you know when
we knew that if we watched the show because he
had an alter ego version of the Steve vercal character
named Stefan. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Check out the Key and Peel family matters schedule that way.
Can't leave it unsaid.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
So there's that mystery salid hopefully. Next, we've got prison
colony talking about the history of Australia. No doubt it
would be more accurate to say a convict colony was
established here as convicted lawbreakers of even the most minor
infractions thanks to their dire poverty. That's a really good point.
These probably were a lot of people that did not
deserve to be sent there. It gets a reputation as
(10:05):
being this like hive of scum and villainy and all
of that, and there are probably a lot of innocent
folks that were thrown into forced labor on this colony.
So just throwing that out there, Yeah, to their poverty,
dire poverty. We're transported from Britain and Ireland. And yes,
many are the descendants of convicts and claim to be
quite proud to be so many residents that believe are
(10:25):
referring to Next, we've got jungle. We don't have jungle
per se. I'm assuming they're talking about the popular nineteen
nineties dance music craze jungle. Now, anybody out there, rimshaw,
It's so it's like, let's go to drum and bass.
Jungle was a subset of Yeah, that is not what
they're talking about. They're talking about literal jungle that they
apparently don't have per se. Are heavily forested areas, and
(10:49):
the subtropics and tropics are termed rainforests, similar.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
But not quite unique biome.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
And lastly, exactly, we've actually got two more quick ones,
and well, I gotta so any good ones. Koala's koalas
are not bear It's just marsupials c to look pretty
dopey when sitting in their tree. Sleepy on eucalyptus leaves.
I'm assuming sleepy on eucalyptus leaves meaning they're like high
off the eucalyptus leaves and sometimes can be strappy. What
(11:14):
a stroppy does that mean like built, like fit.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Strap be sassy. They get attitude. You know. If you
ever want to bust the American myth about the Koala,
go to YouTube, get thee to YouTube now and watch
Koalas fighting. There you go also riddled with chlamydia.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Jesus Christ just suck the joy right out of Koalas
for us uh Ben and ljb Okay, So the Internet
says strappy, you nail the ben attitude, but specifically kind
of grumpy tendencies, you know, like you said fighting the
fighting words. They are in dire need, of course, as
we know as habitat destruction, accidental deaths thanks to humans
(11:53):
and their pets, interactions, and diseases decimate their numbers. Finally,
we're gonna get to the bun yip and the yowee.
We definitely have talked about these at various times encryptid conversations.
My belief is that these are animals of legend for
the First Nations people and far from real, although with
(12:15):
more interesting fossilized bones being recovered, it may well be
that in time past there could be evidence of new
unidentified creatures that provide a tiny glimpse of where the
dreaming stories have been handed down from the Dreaming, referring
to the dream time of belief, sort of a kind
of an afterlife parallel dimension of the Aborigines. It's actually
(12:38):
really heavily featured in the Sandman series, of course, dream
being Morpheus the main character, the Lord of dream. There's
a really interesting storyline that involves Aborigines and the idea
of dream time and the dreaming in that intersection. Pretty
cool stuff. But I will say, though, with all of
the crazy stuff, a shout out to friend of the show, Peach,
(13:00):
and we've become good Internet friends. Who lives in the
deep the deepest of bush in Australia, in the Outpack,
and the critters that I see her rescuing from the
street and dealing with coming into her house through the
light fixtures and all kinds of stuff, always with the
cheerful attitude. She loves these creatures so much. Some of
(13:21):
the things that I've seen in her photograph really defy imagination.
So the idea that there could be an undiscovered critter
in the outpack is not beyond the realm of possibility
in my mind. I don't know what you guys think,
because some of those creatures that we definitely know exist.
They're pretty bun yippy or yowieyesh on their own because
they don't really look like anything I've ever seen before.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Get LJB. First off, thank you so much for putting
up with our American accents and for giving us these reactions.
Like you said, Noel, there's some there are some things
that we sort of summarize here interesting stuff about cryptid,
specifically the Tasmanian tiger, right, which is one of the
(14:05):
most likely cryptids to exist still given the vast expanse
of wilderness out there in Australia and in surrounding areas
shout out Tasmania. The idea of the dreaming is it's fascinating,
it's worth its own episode because it's a very different
(14:26):
cultural framework for experiencing what we would call reality today.
I love your point here, no All, the idea that
there may well be undiscovered large fauta of some sort
in the outback, because this is one of the most
likely places where such animals could be discovered. And we
(14:50):
also know that due to the long, slow unwinding and
shifting of Pangaea, the continent of Australia is home to
a abundance of unique life forms that do not occur
anywhere else on the planet, and therefore the universe as
humans know it can't wait to go. Got some got
(15:11):
some things, got some things in the works. So shout
out to other Australian friends, Shout out to Patrice, Shout
out to a fellow ben down Under. Hope to see
you soon. I'll tell you man, LJB. One of the
wildest things you mentioned here is the Komodo dragon. So cool,
so cool.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Yeah, one thing I think they came up maybe in
a conversation that we've had about the Komna dragon. I
think there was sort of misreported that these things were venomous,
that they had like you know, fang, you know, they
could inject you with the poison. But I think what
I had heard or read, and I can't remember exactly
where was it. Their mouths are just so filthy and
like you know, disease kind of in their Germany that
(15:55):
if they bite you, you're just probably gonna get infected
from that, and it could be a death sentence in it.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
I mean, if you survived the bite, if you survived.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
The first bring it on Komodo dragons. It's like that
ghost under this guy.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Stop badgering the Komodo dragon.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Man, I get PvP one.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
I'm confident AnyWho. A couple other little things you couldn't
get to from this amazing list, but we'll end with
listening to you as endlessly fascinating as you do on
the topics that aren't often discussed frankly and with humor.
Thank you much appreciate it. We much appreciate you. L JB. PS.
We don't say good day either to you and find
(16:34):
sally ho to you all kind regards. That was not
That was not l JB's sign off. That was kind regards.
That's very proper, l JB. I like that we talked
this through as as I read it instead of waiting
until the end. There was no other way to do.
This was just like an absolute uh wealth of information
and commentary from various episodes. So I don't know, man,
(16:57):
I don't you guys have anything to add? I think
we could probably pop to a breaks. There's anything you
got last thing? Good day, good day to user, I say,
good day, sir. You get nothing except this delightful commercial
break from our sponsor and then some more Listen tomail.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
And we've returned, and we are going to the email
banks to hear from Mysteria, Mysteria MYSTERI, Yes, Mysterious. I'm
just gonna read this first part of guys, and then
there are links, and let's look at them together, and
we'll just kind of be like, oh, well, what what's
inside this link? It's it's gonna come up later though,
(17:44):
but for now.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
I hear those voices.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Okay, Mysterious says, Hey, if you guys really want to
do a deeper dive on local corruption, just look at Illinois.
The entire state is a hot mess. And then there's
a link. This is our first link in the series.
It appears to be a Wikipedia link, the title of
which is simply corruption in Illinois. And guys, it's not
(18:13):
a short Wikipedia, It's not.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
So there's okay, Well, let's do an overview. There's a
fairly large section for federal corruption. There's a smaller state
corruption like sub area, and for governors and state officials.
Then it's got municipal corruption. And that's the largest section,
(18:41):
I would say.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
And a special, a special shout out just to Aldermen
of Chicago for anybody not in the US. Alderman is
a member of the city council, basically with a fancy
your name. But Chicago has or a very long time
been infamous in US history as a text book case
(19:07):
of like a quintessential hold this up to the class
example of widespread intergenerational corruption and oh, nothing seems set
to change.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Well, let's let's read a sentence here from a Wikipedia
Remember this is a Wikipedia page. It can be edited
by anyone that can edit Wikipedia. But you know, for
the most part these things are policed pretty well internally,
right by just other people looking at it and changing it.
And Alderman and Aldermen are always in there. But here's
(19:38):
here's a sentence. It's like the third sentence at the
top of the page. Illinois had the third most federal
criminal convictions for public corruption between nineteen seventy six and
twenty twelve, behind New York and California. Uh oh, those
seem like the two biggest ones.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
I would have guessed, Watch out, guys, they're on your wake.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, oh man for real. In the first sentence is
corruption in Illinois has been a problem from the earliest
history of the state, and it goes all the way
back to eighteen eighteen and.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
It quotes the Economist too, yep, which is not exactly
a left wing publication, Like if the economist to say,
and you're financially crooked, might be time for some self inventory.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Oh yeah, well, then let's jump to the next thing
that mysterious says. Mysterious says the Rita Crundwell case is
an especially wild ride. And then our second link appears.
Oh and this is to the US Attorney's Office, Northern
District of Illinois. Uh, here's the title Former Dixon Comptroller
(20:45):
Rita Crowell sentence.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Fly beat me here, doc. I knew it. I knew
knowing what a comptroller is would matter at some point.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
I mean to get a parliamentarian and somewhere, go Gary.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
It's the numbers, gentlemen. Former Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell sentenced
to nearly twenty years in federal prison for fifty three
point seven million dollar theft from the city.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Can't be out trolling the comps man.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
WHOA, that's intense this story is from And that was
so covert it took me a second.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
That was on a delayed reaction with that.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Very well done, Very well done, Ben. By the way,
this was posted on Valentine's Day twenty thirteen. You know
who didn't have a great Valentine's Day? Rita Crundwell ooh jeez, Louise.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
I thought you were gonna save me, and I was like,
all right, man, just keep the kid gloves on. We're
on the air.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I can barely remember last week. I have no idea
what happened on.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
This is a this is a huge case, right, mat Like,
this is as you said, this is a this is
a multi million dollar, more than two decades plus level
of crime.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Yeah. She pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering
of more than fifty three million dollars from the city
since nineteen ninety.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Oh dude. She used the proceeds to finance her quarter
horse farming business.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
I'm sorry, you mean like little horses.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
I know, just twenty percent of a horse.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
It's like quarter scale horse. No, quarter horses are those
those little fellows.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
But she was farming them, so I guess just breeding.
Maybe it's a thing. It's a bit odd.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
I don't think they're tiny, though. I think it's it's
a name for a horse. That's really I sound stupid.
I'm not a Questionian equestrian.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Yeah, you're right, they're very fast. Why do I think
that they're tiny?
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Now now they're sprinters.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Yeah, you're right. Huh. You know what, I learned something
new today because in my head quarter, horses were always
like the little baby horses that never grow up, like
little Sebastian.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Never forget, never forget that. Yeah, there's a little Sebastian.
The stuff Little Sebastian doesn't want you to know.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
The horses built for speed. He nailed it, Ben.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Well, here's the thing. It sounds like, sounds like the
long arm of the law nailed our friend Grundwell. And
this is Chicago is again a place with some problems.
It is one of the most American of American cities.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
But Matt, yes, I see from I see from the
press release that got shared with us that this is
one of the largest thefts or the largest theft of
state fu I.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Believe the judge said it was, or yeah, it was
the largest theft in state history. And as we've learned,
corruption in Illinois runs rampant and long.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
I was about to say, I mean, Chicago's is a
notoriously corrupt city and that's where the like political boss
kind of systems you know, came up.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
It's pretty normally by the way, it's the city involved, right,
so she's a city comptroller. It was public funds stolen
from the city of Dixon, dixo n. So she's having
to pay back the city of Dixon that only has
a population less than sixteen thousand people, about one hundred
miles southwest of Chicago.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Guys, I don't I don't know if you've thought about this,
but given how much tax we all pay, and I
know i've I've griped about this many times, and I like,
show me the money, show me what you're doing with it,
whether it be local or federal. I just think fraud
like this happens a lot more than we think. I
really do. I think somebody's pocketing my check. I really truly,
(24:52):
because I don't see any any benefit from it. And
maybe that's that's naive to say this because I'm not
seeing it directly that somebody's stealing it. But I'd do
not have confidence in state or federal government to now
I'm sounding like I want to start my own secede
from the union or something.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
But I think about this. These are local taxes, so
like city taxes, so with Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
You know, we don't pay as much city as we
use federal. But dark streets are riddled with potholes, dangerous stuff.
You know.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Well, see, now, I this is weird. I've never paid
city taxes like a local tax, state and federal. In
this case, it's like sales tax, right, I have stuff
bought in the city and other things like that when
you stay at a hotel. Right, you've got like different taxes
that are levied depending on the city you're in. I
don't know so, but that that seems like a lot
(25:42):
of money in a local city taxes that sixteen thousand people.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Yeah, a lot of money laundering too, and money laundering
it looks like over okay, money laundering is one of
those things that used to be a good living back
in the day, but it's increasingly difficult to clean the money. Right.
So if anything, one of the questions that I have
(26:07):
for you met is could she have gotten away with it?
If she just cut and run like ten years in,
twelve years in? Could she have just retired, you know,
have the fanfare or whatever is appropriate for a comptroller
when they're out of the game, and then just move
(26:27):
to a non extradition country because the IRS is not
going to chase you to Panama. They're not going to
chase you if your white collar crimes are below a
certain threshold such that it would cost them more to
come hunt you.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Uh yeah, I mean that.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Well, maybe we should read a little bit more of this.
I know we kind of got stuck mysteria on this one.
You've sent us so many other links, but I think
this is this is really interesting to me. Let's continue
reading here from the Justice DoD of link. Here it says,
so she started this scheme in nineteen ninety. She opened
a secret bank account which she was the only one
(27:09):
that could access it, right, But she's also got control
of all the city's funds. The name of the account
was RSCDA Reserve Fund or the RSCDA account. The initials
stood for Reserve Sewer Capital Development Account, although no such
account actually existed for the city, and she did not
disclose the existence of the secret account. So I guess
(27:32):
she just Oh, it says Crundwell stole at least twenty
five thousand dollars from a separate Dixon Bank account for
its sister city program between eighty eight and ninety before
she started this big plan. So she stole twenty five
thousand dollars. She got away with it, and she was
like she had a reserve fund.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
She needed more. She's got her. Right.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
It reminds me of True Detective season two. A lot
of that with like the secret funding and owing to
other things.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
Right, that was that was the boring season.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Hey, there were some cool stuff in there too, Vince Vaughan,
let's go.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
He was fine. The masks, the crow mask was very cool.
But overall I thought it was you guys watched the
new episode.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Yes, yes, I'm into it.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
I like it.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
I think it's weird how the internet hates women. Uh,
the criticism, I think it's great.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
I think people are you know, well, then Nick puts
a lot of fellow h has always been a bit
of a man's man, so I think a lot of
his fans are those types. So maybe they're mad that
he's not involved, but I'm excited about it.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
It's school six episodes contained.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
Love it an anthology series anyway, Really quickly, guys, small horses,
there's called miniature horses just for the please carry the
confused with pies. No different.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
So a quarter horse is actually a quarter of a horse, and.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
The left that's it's like one of those pieces.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Also, Matt, there's something really interesting that we see here
in mysterious, mysterious mysterious letter, which is the small town corruption. Right,
can we mention what is it? The townships is a
township like a county.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
I think that's right. They haven't. They haven't been like
you know, Jerry, York State and Massachusetts. There's sort of
an old New England y thing ish kind of.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I think, yes. And this is our third link, thank
you so much mysteria. And this appears to be your
home county mysteria.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Yeah, the McHenry County State's attorney office back in twenty
eighteen started investigating several townships. So townships must just be
communities within a county for again illegally using taxpayer money.
And apparently this is these are only two of like
(30:00):
at least three places, three townships in this one county
that are super crooked. I don't know, man, When we
say it's cold up in Illinois, it feels like it's
cold on a number of levels. Because you have to
be pretty ruthless to be elected to public office and
just violate trust like that.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Right, Yeah, I'm trying to figure out what the actual
corruption here is or like what's being investigated. It looks like, well,
let me read this none to. Township also hired two
of Miller's sons, who somebody who's working directly with the township,
to full time positions, adding to its highway departments more
than two million dollars payroll, with hundreds of thousands more
(30:43):
in pensions and other benefits.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
So this looks like nepotism maybe and patting the patting
the books kind of like when organized crime will come
into a construction project.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
And yeah, yeah, let me talk about that. Everything I
learned about crime I learned from the Godfather movies and
the Sopranos. And sopranos they're always working on this esplanade
that's never finished. This never gets finished, and they're doing
they call them like no show jobs where you get paid,
you don't have to come. That's like, you know, that's
like a way you can kind of grease some palms.
(31:16):
I'm gonna give you like five no jobs this month.
And then also like by itemizing things that were never
actually purchased and billing for them and things like that
good way to hide money, guys.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
According to Illinois policy dot org, which is where this
link took us, there's also really a major problem with
like voter intimidation when there's a referendum coming up to
change you know, the ways of the local government, and
it looks like it's happening in a lot of townships there. Well,
(31:49):
let's just mention the other things that are in here.
We won't go over the link. So the last couple
of things you mentioned here mysteria. You said, finally, this
is probably more a case of incompetence than corruption. But
check out the police department's handling of the Ridder murder
back in nineteen eighty eight. So I don't know anything
about the Ridder murder. You've got a link to us
(32:10):
here to the Chicago Tribune about a man named Richard
Church who was wanted for the nineteen eighty eight murders
of Raymond Ritter and his wife, Ruth Ann. We're not
going to talk about it in detail at all right now,
but if you want to look it up you can.
We're going to check it out for you know, the
potentiality of a longer episode. I like that word. It's
(32:32):
not a word, but then it's a word.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Oh it is.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
I didn't think it was.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
You said other things here told us more about that murder,
but we're gonna hold it for later. So thank you
so much, Mysterio letting us know about just how bad
Illinois could potentially be. But we're not passing judgment because
state corruption exists everywhere, not just in the US, not
just in Illinois.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
It's deeper than the pizza, right.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
It's I was gonna do deeper than hip hop thing,
but I can't so all right than it is, but
it's also deeper. So so thank you so much, Mysterious
for writing in. We'll be right back with more messages
from you.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
And we have returned for one more piece of listener
mail and something we like to call letters from home.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
This final piece of correspondence comes to us from someone
we're gonna call CJ because we did not get full
permission to use their name. This is kind of the
beginning of a rabbit hole. CJ sends us a message
about someone named Donna I and says, the timeline and
(33:51):
events leading up to this poor woman's disappearance are into
lining up. You all should look into it and do
an episode. I agree, CJ. This is also an unfolding event.
If you choose to do so, please let me know.
I'd love to hear it. If you don't trust links,
I understand, says CJ, and sends us a couple of
different links here and tells us a little bit about
(34:13):
the case. Her name, says CJ, was Donna. I e ye,
this happened very recently in Washington County, Missouri. I saw
her name because she was dumped off in the middle
of Mark Twain National Forest in the middle of the
night by a police officer in subfreezing temperatures with no
(34:33):
phone and has not been heard from since. This is
the first I have heard of this story. Have you
heard about this?
Speaker 4 (34:42):
No, I haven't heard of it either. Let's see, I'm
following the link now.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Yeah, according to this, so this is happening now. There
was a story posted on Fox to Now Missouri affiliate
Just Yes yesterday, as we record, on January sixteenth, and
it seems that a Washington County sheriff named Zach Jacobson
(35:09):
had activated something called the Mineral Area Major Case Squad
to investigate what happened with this disappearance. A deputy allegedly
dropped Donna I off around eleven pm in the middle
of nowhere look up the Mark Twain National Forest. It
is not like a pedestrian walking space. And she has
(35:34):
not been seen since.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Yeah, And there's a quote from her brother, I believe
just just speaking to her mental state of the time,
saying that she wasn't in any condition to make a
decision for herself. They informed me while we were standing
right where we are right now, she had been picked
up at the hospital by a Washington County female sheriff's deputy.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
And according to the reporting that we have seen, we
have a rough timeline of events. Donna I, at the
age of forty four years old, is a mother. When
she went missing, she left a hospital against her family's
wishes on Monday, the eighth of January. According to the family,
(36:19):
she has a medical condition that can affect her mobility
and mental health. They were informed by the sheriff's deputy
that she had been picked up from the hospital by
the sheriff. Apparently she was dropped off in the middle
of the forest. Apparently it's because they thought they were
(36:40):
dropping her off at the correct place. But there's so
many questions going on here. Even as we're recording right now,
Donna I's daughter in law, Leahne Miller, has organized a
civilian search party to try to find this missing person.
And this reminds me of the conversations we've had over
(37:02):
a series of years about one of the strangest, most
egregious things in the US, which is that we have
a lot of national parks, we have a lot of wilderness,
and as we record, there is no government agency that
keeps track of how many people go missing in parks
(37:22):
each year. Shout out to us missing for one one.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
Right, I'm a little confused. Was she discharged from the
hospital after Was this like a psychiatric hospital or was
this just like she was injured and she was discharged
And what led to the police being her only ride?
Speaker 3 (37:40):
It's still unclear. We know that we know that the
family wanted her to stay under care. We don't know
each of the steps that led to this disappearance yet,
which is why we're putting this out here now. Hopefully
by the time this her mail hits the air waves,
(38:03):
hopefully we'll be able to update with some sort of
good news. Hopefully she has been found. But it's stunning
just how easy it is to disappear in the US.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
Did you mention the bag that they found.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Yeah, tell us about that. That's one of the primary
clues or at least bread problems.
Speaker 4 (38:22):
Oh, only to say that they did find it close
to her brother's house. So you gotta wonder, like, did
they drop her off so far that she had to
like trudge her way back? But if she did, why
was the bag there? And she didn't Like you would
think if she was dropped off in this remote middle
of nowhere that she would just have been lost. But
(38:44):
the connection with a piece of personal property of hers
to be so close to where she was trying to
get to, that's really interesting and head scratchy.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
Yeah, especially considering how brutal winter storms have been across
the US right now. You can make an argument that
there is no way to drop someone off in the
wild and reasonably expect that they will be able to survive.
It's a I saw a I saw some scuttle butts
(39:13):
and comments on various news forums, and one comment or
on the Saint Louis Reddit implies, and this is just
a person on the Internet implies that this drop off
was on purpose, meaning that whomever dropped her off there
(39:35):
meant for something bad to happen to her, assumed that
she would not survive the incredibly dangerous weather. Now again
we can't say any of that with any sort of certitude,
but of course, in the absence of transparency, speculation only
thrives totally.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
Yeah, now there's there's there's something what's the word something
is rotten then, so wherever this is, yeah, no, there's
definitely seems to be some details that are missing. And
of course our hope is with this individual being found
unscathed and perhaps they'll be an update soon and CJ.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
We're keeping this short because again hopefully we can return
with good news. We also, at least I want to
give everybody again the notice that misinformation and speculation thrives
so easily on weaponize social media. If you do have
any knowledge of Donna I's whereabouts, please do as Fox
(40:37):
News mentions, please do contact the authorities. Call nine to
one one if you know of anybody who's called missing
in a national park. The scary thing about the United
States is the onus is on you. It's on us
as members of the public to report this stuff because
otherwise people can simply go missing. So hopefully again we'll
(41:01):
come back. We'll come back with updates. As I said
at the top, this is a live story. I think
it'd be great for us to end today's show with
a little bit of a positive note while we're waiting
to hear the news on Donna I have. I love
doing this letters from home thing shared a shared a
(41:23):
thing recently from our pals over on Here's where it
gets crazy from a graphic novel artist named Ryan van
osdahal or astaal apologies, serf, we're mispronouncing your name. Ryan
put us in his graphic novel and it was so kind,
it was so neat. We have a couple panels of it, Nol.
(41:43):
Do you want to describe those panels?
Speaker 4 (41:45):
Oh? I mean yeah, it's just like a I guess
it's sort of like a D and D party type
situation where the three of us are I believe, halflings
that are on a wilderness journey of some kind. And
you'd be better at describing the content of the conversation,
but we were all personified delightfully.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
Nolan, the most talented weapons smith in the Seven Valleys,
Matthias proprietor, the best in on the Western Continent and
then they just call me Benjamin and I'm a halfling
and say some catchphrases at some point. Yeah, I agree
with you. It's got a Lord of the Rings meets
Lone Gunman and we're just very grateful again every time,
(42:31):
folks that you see fit to include us in your stories,
your creative acts. We receive a lot of amazing music
inspired by episodes, and I'm not blowing smoke a lot.
It's really good, like super impressive. So we just wanted
to shout this out. I reached out to the author
(42:52):
of this graphic novel and hopefully we'll be returning with
some information about how we can support this independent artist.
We love to see it. We'd also love to hear
from you with any other creative works that were in
some way inspired by this show, or maybe this is
what you listen to while you're painting, while you're working
(43:14):
on other things. We have your back, and it turns
out that a lot of our fellow conspiracy realists had
our back when we asked folks to check out our
sketch comedy on Instagram.
Speaker 4 (43:30):
Yeah you can call it that, because you can. Yeah,
we did it as it was a fun goofy silly
year in predictions or not year in predictions and predictions
for the new year of conspiracies that will definitely come
to fruish, come to pass, or be exposed. So do
check that out. You can, you can't do that. You
can be part of this fella conspiracy realists.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
Yeah, be the sketch comedy change you wish to see
in the world. I'm pretty sure famous person said that,
Edward James almost probably. Let's end this way. We're gonna
give a really quick cavalcade of names of people who
chimed in on our Mandela Effect video and said, hey,
(44:14):
strange news brought me here. So before we end the show,
let's give you that list of names.
Speaker 4 (44:21):
Here we go.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
Shout out to Jamie Kristen, Howard, Dan Bush, one oh one, Rocket,
Queen sixty eight, Classic Chaos Events, Sailor, Bright Beef Unit,
Economic Ziggie Less, VM Sprang, who says the overacting is superb,
Prince of Eco Park, c Bull nine. Alisa in her
thirties wrote me the Queen, Odinfelhammer, Vivick Rose, vivickz Rose,
Saturday Morning Cartoons, Penny Takes Pictures, Jay Font five eighty two,
(44:46):
Shawmas Campbell, Heinke, Johnny on the Rocks, Holly Quinn seventy seven,
Refreshing Art Studio, Dreesy Blaze, Joe's Misk No. One in particular,
that's a nice pun. Colin Ray ninety six, Style Masters, Blessed,
dim Fingers, Gerro's Space, d Doctor, Rusty Shack, Hollan Reed
ninety six for Shore Pizza, Chris sweety What eight four
eight eight see Bob ten Shadow, The Maximum, Cranberry for
(45:09):
twenty six oh three, d Cammi Kat and Noldre many
many others. But that's a long list of names. And
we promised, we promised to thank you for doing so,
but we we appreciate, We love the comments. We've got
more videos on the way. We would love to offer
you a meme in these trying times. And No, I
(45:29):
have to ask, since our pal Matt had to scoot
for some martial arts related adventures, what are some things
you're excited about with our social media and where can
people check it out?
Speaker 4 (45:42):
Oh boy, oh boy, I'm glad you asked, Ben. I'm
definitely excited about doing more silly, goofy videos in the
coming year. You can find those on the Internet, specifically
on our YouTube channel where they appear often as YouTube shorts.
You can also find us on Facebook where we have
a Facebook group. Here's where It's Crazy, which I believe
is where you might have been able to experience the
(46:04):
comic that we described firsthand. Isn't that right? Was that posted?
There was that sense you?
Speaker 3 (46:08):
Yes, that's great.
Speaker 4 (46:09):
There you go, so you can you can be a
part of that too, and also the red Headed StepShot
of the bunch x FK Twitter. We are conspiracy stuff
on all three of those. On Instagram and TikTok, where
you'll also find some content, we are conspiracy Stuff show.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
And if you don't sit the social meds, if your
dry January means no social media, we have your back.
You can call us directly on a telephonic device of
your choosing. All you have to do is cast the
following spell. Look at the numbers hit one eight, three
three STDWYTK. You will summon three minutes into the void
(46:48):
and be careful, folks. Sometimes the void answers back. All
we ask that you do. Tell us what's on your mind,
give yourself a cool nickname. Let us know if we
can use your name and or message on the air.
Most importantly, do not censor yourself. If you have more
to say than we'll fit in three minutes. If you
have links, if you have leads, if you have photos,
if you have sounds that you want to convey to us,
(47:10):
directly drop us a line. We read every single email
we get at our good old fashioned address where we.
Speaker 4 (47:17):
Are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Alexis code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
you are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. It is Thursday, as the humans
reckon their weeks, which means it is time for one
of our most exciting evenings on the show. We get
(00:51):
to join you, our fellow conspiracy realist, and share your
stories with everyone else. We're going to get some insight
from our friends down under. We're going to have some
responses to an earlier question about local corruption. We're also
going to have some letters from home, and a look
(01:14):
at an ongoing disappearance which occurred quite recently. But before
we do any of that, we talked about this off air.
We thought we would start with the fun stuff because
there is a letter that absolutely delighted all of us.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
I think, right, oh yeah, it's always nice to get
correspondence from our pals down Under, especially when it comes
to calling us on things that we perhaps didn't get
quite right about their beautiful and dare I say dangerous homeland.
We know it's Melbourne. I think we've we've checked that
(01:49):
one off the list. And then here's the thing. These
are always good natured. They're always if there's any ribbing,
these Aussies, they tend to have a very good sense
of humor. I really appreciate that about them, and this
is no exception. We got quite a cavalcade of things
to run through with this email from LJB starts like
this high conspiracy team fascinated by your pot on the
(02:11):
bun Yip and beyond. Thank you and thanks also for
shining a light on our amazingly beautiful and unique land
animals and biomes. For your listeners. You asked for opinions comments,
So here you go. Jmho what is that one? Guys?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Just by a humble opinion?
Speaker 4 (02:27):
Oh geez, so much cool than me. It took me
a while to even figure out what TLDR meant. Jmahoe
Outback Steakhouse. Sadly, even though I have made two brief
visits to your lands some years ago. I never had
the opportunity to visit, so can't comment. Apologies. I think
we post the question of hey, are their outback steakhouses
(02:47):
in Australia, to which we found there were a couple,
and b do they get it right? I would pause
it probably not Crocodile Dundee. Although a popular comedian actor
in his day, Paul Hogan's Crocodile Dundee is pretty cringeworthy.
Agreed his comedy was unsophisticated and left many of us
in despair. I see, But at the end of the day,
(03:09):
if people found it funny, why not be amused? That's
that Ausie spirit. There are very auker Aussies. Yes, that
ss says Z. But I don't know. Oker. Is it
Ochre or Ocker? Oker? The colors of color? I'm gonna
go with Oker for now. Who would identify and potentially
sound like him? Irl? So that must be sort of
like a I don't know. Maybe it reminds me of
(03:32):
kind of Louisiana French culture, like Bayou folks. You know,
maybe that's sort of an equivalent, but I can't be sure. Fosters,
it's sparely not Australian. For beer. We do not drink Fosters. Ever,
it has the rep as the worst ever brew. Guys,
I have to take a quick pause here. Isn't it
funny though? How people often identify America with things like
(03:55):
bud Light, and we absolutely drink the hell out of
bud Light. Does a country, you know? But then you
know their individual results may vary, I wonder.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Though, But it's a German beer basically, right, well, sure,
fair enough.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
My point is though that it's it's gotten a reputation
as being sort of this like the most basic of
American beers, and it gets their reputation because it is
incredibly popular, and there's a couple other ones you could
add to that list. Foster's, however, being an Australian beer.
I'm sure there are hundreds of other really good Australian beers.
This is the one that just happens to hang their
(04:31):
whole marketing on this overwrought Australian accents. And like, you know,
I don't get regular TV anymore, so I don't know
the commercials are like, but they really lean into that,
and I'm sure they'd folks in their country cringe. And
also of the beer's not very good. Have you guys
ever had a Foster's I never even had one, Do
you like.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Get Maybe I'm misremembering this, but I want to say
Foster's for a time had like this catter can or
is a bigger something.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
It was supposed to look like a little barrel. Yeah,
just just like the earlier or a small keg right,
just so kawhi keg and uh to follow up. Aker
or oker I think means someone with a strong accent.
And the when we talked about outback, there is one.
(05:16):
There's one outback. It's somewhere forgive me, folks. It's somewhere
like the Sydney Airport, and people visit it as a novelty.
I think the Foster's the idea is that if you
call something Australian, you can easily sell it to Americans.
Maybe we should come out with something and call it
the Australian T shirt of stuff they don't want you to.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Why not? Moving on to another person who could probably
be accused of being an auker or oker. Steve Irwin,
kind of the real life crocodile Dundee in some ways
definitely had a similar accent, you know, wore the shorts
kind of the Ranger Smith outfit, so cool, genuine genuine
(05:57):
passion for the outback. And I'll if it's critters and
as we know, and I think we've all remarked upon
what a wild I think biome is exactly the term
to use, just the the stuff that exists there. It
looks like oftentimes stuff you think of as being from
another planet that we just don't have any analog for
a lot of their creatures over here. And Steve Irwin
(06:18):
loved all of them, and in fact, unfortunately I believe
his life was ended by one of them. I believe
he was.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Stunned in the heart by a stingray. Pretty wild, was it?
Kat Williams. Cat Williams has been in the news a
lot recently or social.
Speaker 3 (06:35):
He took some shots and some folks.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I want to say it was him that he had
a great bit about Steve Irwin, like with great respect
to Steve Irwin, but that was the joke that he
got stingray. But like he's over there just literally tackling
crocodiles like it's nothing.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I remember that, Matt. I also remember, so Steve when
occupies for anybody not in the US, Steve Irwin occupies
this amazing position in sort of the American pop culture pantheon.
He's a real life Captain Planet. He has the ability
like a D and D ranger to speak with animals,
(07:14):
dungeons and dragons. Sorry, and I think his child is
also following in his footsteps. He was brought down by
Sting Gray, as we mentioned, but he did so much
for environmental advocacy because he just seems like a really
cool dude, a really good hang. And by the way,
(07:35):
if you were into American hip hop, then you know
that for a while, every every MC was rapping about Yeah,
Steve Irwin, right, Steve Verwin to is Sting Gray a
lighter to an upset Jean Gray shout out to Joe
Budden's song on that Long Summer I think or short summer,
and not a shout out to his podcast.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Just to show up with what LJB said about Steve
very much mirroring what we just we all just fan
boyd out big time again. Quite broad and ocherish, Okay,
there you go. But beloved for his love of and
endless enthusiasm for our critters, particularly the dangerous ones, as
we said, one that ultimately took his life, and I'm
(08:17):
sure he wouldn't have had it in any other way.
But who am I to say? I guess I can't
be sure. His efforts, like you said, Ben, his efforts
of environmental matters and wildlife conservation provided him with great
respect and high regard. His loss is truly felt, but
his legacy survives through his remaining family. Matt, did you
have a Steve Irwin comment?
Speaker 2 (08:34):
It's fine, I've said it on the show before. I
don't have to. I think it was my sixteenth or
seventeenth birthday party. Just to give the little insight on me,
it was a combination matrix Steve Irwin birthday party. You
could dresss either or both.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
Okay, that's it.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
That's amazing.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
Next we've got Steve Rkle For some reason, LJB is
not even sure why we have Steve Verkle. Apologies. I'm
not sure of the reference here, but yes, Family Matters
was shown on free to air television.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
I think I've mentioned this. This is a reaction, correct
me here. This is a reaction to the classic episode
we published on Cryptids of Australia, and I think as
way leads on the way conversationally, we mentioned Steve Irwin,
which probably led to us mentioning Steve Verkle. Sorry Australia,
(09:23):
did we do that? Sure?
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Got any cheese? It turns out to a little white
as a smoke show. By the way, you know when
we knew that if we watched the show because he
had an alter ego version of the Steve vercal character
named Stefan. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Check out the Key and Peel family matters schedule that way.
Can't leave it unsaid.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
So there's that mystery salid hopefully. Next, we've got prison
colony talking about the history of Australia. No doubt it
would be more accurate to say a convict colony was
established here as convicted lawbreakers of even the most minor
infractions thanks to their dire poverty. That's a really good point.
These probably were a lot of people that did not
deserve to be sent there. It gets a reputation as
(10:05):
being this like hive of scum and villainy and all
of that, and there are probably a lot of innocent
folks that were thrown into forced labor on this colony.
So just throwing that out there, Yeah, to their poverty,
dire poverty. We're transported from Britain and Ireland. And yes,
many are the descendants of convicts and claim to be
quite proud to be so many residents that believe are
(10:25):
referring to Next, we've got jungle. We don't have jungle
per se. I'm assuming they're talking about the popular nineteen
nineties dance music craze jungle. Now, anybody out there, rimshaw,
It's so it's like, let's go to drum and bass.
Jungle was a subset of Yeah, that is not what
they're talking about. They're talking about literal jungle that they
apparently don't have per se. Are heavily forested areas, and
(10:49):
the subtropics and tropics are termed rainforests, similar.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
But not quite unique biome.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
And lastly, exactly, we've actually got two more quick ones,
and well, I gotta so any good ones. Koala's koalas
are not bear It's just marsupials c to look pretty
dopey when sitting in their tree. Sleepy on eucalyptus leaves.
I'm assuming sleepy on eucalyptus leaves meaning they're like high
off the eucalyptus leaves and sometimes can be strappy. What
(11:14):
a stroppy does that mean like built, like fit.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Strap be sassy. They get attitude. You know. If you
ever want to bust the American myth about the Koala,
go to YouTube, get thee to YouTube now and watch
Koalas fighting. There you go also riddled with chlamydia.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Jesus Christ just suck the joy right out of Koalas
for us uh Ben and ljb Okay, So the Internet
says strappy, you nail the ben attitude, but specifically kind
of grumpy tendencies, you know, like you said fighting the
fighting words. They are in dire need, of course, as
we know as habitat destruction, accidental deaths thanks to humans
(11:53):
and their pets, interactions, and diseases decimate their numbers. Finally,
we're gonna get to the bun yip and the yowee.
We definitely have talked about these at various times encryptid conversations.
My belief is that these are animals of legend for
the First Nations people and far from real, although with
(12:15):
more interesting fossilized bones being recovered, it may well be
that in time past there could be evidence of new
unidentified creatures that provide a tiny glimpse of where the
dreaming stories have been handed down from the Dreaming, referring
to the dream time of belief, sort of a kind
of an afterlife parallel dimension of the Aborigines. It's actually
(12:38):
really heavily featured in the Sandman series, of course, dream
being Morpheus the main character, the Lord of dream. There's
a really interesting storyline that involves Aborigines and the idea
of dream time and the dreaming in that intersection. Pretty
cool stuff. But I will say, though, with all of
the crazy stuff, a shout out to friend of the show, Peach,
(13:00):
and we've become good Internet friends. Who lives in the
deep the deepest of bush in Australia, in the Outpack,
and the critters that I see her rescuing from the
street and dealing with coming into her house through the
light fixtures and all kinds of stuff, always with the
cheerful attitude. She loves these creatures so much. Some of
(13:21):
the things that I've seen in her photograph really defy imagination.
So the idea that there could be an undiscovered critter
in the outpack is not beyond the realm of possibility
in my mind. I don't know what you guys think,
because some of those creatures that we definitely know exist.
They're pretty bun yippy or yowieyesh on their own because
they don't really look like anything I've ever seen before.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Get LJB. First off, thank you so much for putting
up with our American accents and for giving us these reactions.
Like you said, Noel, there's some there are some things
that we sort of summarize here interesting stuff about cryptid,
specifically the Tasmanian tiger, right, which is one of the
(14:05):
most likely cryptids to exist still given the vast expanse
of wilderness out there in Australia and in surrounding areas
shout out Tasmania. The idea of the dreaming is it's fascinating,
it's worth its own episode because it's a very different
(14:26):
cultural framework for experiencing what we would call reality today.
I love your point here, no All, the idea that
there may well be undiscovered large fauta of some sort
in the outback, because this is one of the most
likely places where such animals could be discovered. And we
(14:50):
also know that due to the long, slow unwinding and
shifting of Pangaea, the continent of Australia is home to
a abundance of unique life forms that do not occur
anywhere else on the planet, and therefore the universe as
humans know it can't wait to go. Got some got
(15:11):
some things, got some things in the works. So shout
out to other Australian friends, Shout out to Patrice, Shout
out to a fellow ben down Under. Hope to see
you soon. I'll tell you man, LJB. One of the
wildest things you mentioned here is the Komodo dragon. So cool,
so cool.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Yeah, one thing I think they came up maybe in
a conversation that we've had about the Komna dragon. I
think there was sort of misreported that these things were venomous,
that they had like you know, fang, you know, they
could inject you with the poison. But I think what
I had heard or read, and I can't remember exactly
where was it. Their mouths are just so filthy and
like you know, disease kind of in their Germany that
(15:55):
if they bite you, you're just probably gonna get infected
from that, and it could be a death sentence in it.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
I mean, if you survived the bite, if you survived.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
The first bring it on Komodo dragons. It's like that
ghost under this guy.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Stop badgering the Komodo dragon.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Man, I get PvP one.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
I'm confident AnyWho. A couple other little things you couldn't
get to from this amazing list, but we'll end with
listening to you as endlessly fascinating as you do on
the topics that aren't often discussed frankly and with humor.
Thank you much appreciate it. We much appreciate you. L JB. PS.
We don't say good day either to you and find
(16:34):
sally ho to you all kind regards. That was not
That was not l JB's sign off. That was kind regards.
That's very proper, l JB. I like that we talked
this through as as I read it instead of waiting
until the end. There was no other way to do.
This was just like an absolute uh wealth of information
and commentary from various episodes. So I don't know, man,
(16:57):
I don't you guys have anything to add? I think
we could probably pop to a breaks. There's anything you
got last thing? Good day, good day to user, I say,
good day, sir. You get nothing except this delightful commercial
break from our sponsor and then some more Listen tomail.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
And we've returned, and we are going to the email
banks to hear from Mysteria, Mysteria MYSTERI, Yes, Mysterious. I'm
just gonna read this first part of guys, and then
there are links, and let's look at them together, and
we'll just kind of be like, oh, well, what what's
inside this link? It's it's gonna come up later though,
(17:44):
but for now.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
I hear those voices.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Okay, Mysterious says, Hey, if you guys really want to
do a deeper dive on local corruption, just look at Illinois.
The entire state is a hot mess. And then there's
a link. This is our first link in the series.
It appears to be a Wikipedia link, the title of
which is simply corruption in Illinois. And guys, it's not
(18:13):
a short Wikipedia, It's not.
Speaker 4 (18:19):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
So there's okay, Well, let's do an overview. There's a
fairly large section for federal corruption. There's a smaller state
corruption like sub area, and for governors and state officials.
Then it's got municipal corruption. And that's the largest section,
(18:41):
I would say.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
And a special, a special shout out just to Aldermen
of Chicago for anybody not in the US. Alderman is
a member of the city council, basically with a fancy
your name. But Chicago has or a very long time
been infamous in US history as a text book case
(19:07):
of like a quintessential hold this up to the class
example of widespread intergenerational corruption and oh, nothing seems set
to change.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Well, let's let's read a sentence here from a Wikipedia
Remember this is a Wikipedia page. It can be edited
by anyone that can edit Wikipedia. But you know, for
the most part these things are policed pretty well internally,
right by just other people looking at it and changing it.
And Alderman and Aldermen are always in there. But here's
(19:38):
here's a sentence. It's like the third sentence at the
top of the page. Illinois had the third most federal
criminal convictions for public corruption between nineteen seventy six and
twenty twelve, behind New York and California. Uh oh, those
seem like the two biggest ones.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
I would have guessed, Watch out, guys, they're on your wake.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, oh man for real. In the first sentence is
corruption in Illinois has been a problem from the earliest
history of the state, and it goes all the way
back to eighteen eighteen and.
Speaker 3 (20:11):
It quotes the Economist too, yep, which is not exactly
a left wing publication, Like if the economist to say,
and you're financially crooked, might be time for some self inventory.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Oh yeah, well, then let's jump to the next thing
that mysterious says. Mysterious says the Rita Crundwell case is
an especially wild ride. And then our second link appears.
Oh and this is to the US Attorney's Office, Northern
District of Illinois. Uh, here's the title Former Dixon Comptroller
(20:45):
Rita Crowell sentence.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Fly beat me here, doc. I knew it. I knew
knowing what a comptroller is would matter at some point.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
I mean to get a parliamentarian and somewhere, go Gary.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
It's the numbers, gentlemen. Former Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell sentenced
to nearly twenty years in federal prison for fifty three
point seven million dollar theft from the city.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Can't be out trolling the comps man.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
WHOA, that's intense this story is from And that was
so covert it took me a second.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
That was on a delayed reaction with that.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Very well done, Very well done, Ben. By the way,
this was posted on Valentine's Day twenty thirteen. You know
who didn't have a great Valentine's Day? Rita Crundwell ooh jeez, Louise.
Speaker 3 (21:37):
I thought you were gonna save me, and I was like,
all right, man, just keep the kid gloves on. We're
on the air.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
I can barely remember last week. I have no idea
what happened on.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
This is a this is a huge case, right, mat Like,
this is as you said, this is a this is
a multi million dollar, more than two decades plus level
of crime.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Yeah. She pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering
of more than fifty three million dollars from the city
since nineteen ninety.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Oh dude. She used the proceeds to finance her quarter
horse farming business.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
I'm sorry, you mean like little horses.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
I know, just twenty percent of a horse.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
It's like quarter scale horse. No, quarter horses are those
those little fellows.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
But she was farming them, so I guess just breeding.
Maybe it's a thing. It's a bit odd.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
I don't think they're tiny, though. I think it's it's
a name for a horse. That's really I sound stupid.
I'm not a Questionian equestrian.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Yeah, you're right, they're very fast. Why do I think
that they're tiny?
Speaker 3 (22:48):
Now now they're sprinters.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Yeah, you're right. Huh. You know what, I learned something
new today because in my head quarter, horses were always
like the little baby horses that never grow up, like
little Sebastian.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
Never forget, never forget that. Yeah, there's a little Sebastian.
The stuff Little Sebastian doesn't want you to know.
Speaker 4 (23:15):
The horses built for speed. He nailed it, Ben.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Well, here's the thing. It sounds like, sounds like the
long arm of the law nailed our friend Grundwell. And
this is Chicago is again a place with some problems.
It is one of the most American of American cities.
Speaker 5 (23:34):
But Matt, yes, I see from I see from the
press release that got shared with us that this is
one of the largest thefts or the largest theft of
state fu I.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Believe the judge said it was, or yeah, it was
the largest theft in state history. And as we've learned,
corruption in Illinois runs rampant and long.
Speaker 4 (24:00):
I was about to say, I mean, Chicago's is a
notoriously corrupt city and that's where the like political boss
kind of systems you know, came up.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
It's pretty normally by the way, it's the city involved, right,
so she's a city comptroller. It was public funds stolen
from the city of Dixon, dixo n. So she's having
to pay back the city of Dixon that only has
a population less than sixteen thousand people, about one hundred
miles southwest of Chicago.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Guys, I don't I don't know if you've thought about this,
but given how much tax we all pay, and I
know i've I've griped about this many times, and I like,
show me the money, show me what you're doing with it,
whether it be local or federal. I just think fraud
like this happens a lot more than we think. I
really do. I think somebody's pocketing my check. I really truly,
(24:52):
because I don't see any any benefit from it. And
maybe that's that's naive to say this because I'm not
seeing it directly that somebody's stealing it. But I'd do
not have confidence in state or federal government to now
I'm sounding like I want to start my own secede
from the union or something.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
But I think about this. These are local taxes, so
like city taxes, so with Atlanta.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
You know, we don't pay as much city as we
use federal. But dark streets are riddled with potholes, dangerous stuff.
You know.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Well, see, now, I this is weird. I've never paid
city taxes like a local tax, state and federal. In
this case, it's like sales tax, right, I have stuff
bought in the city and other things like that when
you stay at a hotel. Right, you've got like different taxes
that are levied depending on the city you're in. I
don't know so, but that that seems like a lot
(25:42):
of money in a local city taxes that sixteen thousand people.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Yeah, a lot of money laundering too, and money laundering
it looks like over okay, money laundering is one of
those things that used to be a good living back
in the day, but it's increasingly difficult to clean the money. Right.
So if anything, one of the questions that I have
(26:07):
for you met is could she have gotten away with it?
If she just cut and run like ten years in,
twelve years in? Could she have just retired, you know,
have the fanfare or whatever is appropriate for a comptroller
when they're out of the game, and then just move
(26:27):
to a non extradition country because the IRS is not
going to chase you to Panama. They're not going to
chase you if your white collar crimes are below a
certain threshold such that it would cost them more to
come hunt you.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Uh yeah, I mean that.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
Well, maybe we should read a little bit more of this.
I know we kind of got stuck mysteria on this one.
You've sent us so many other links, but I think
this is this is really interesting to me. Let's continue
reading here from the Justice DoD of link. Here it says,
so she started this scheme in nineteen ninety. She opened
a secret bank account which she was the only one
(27:09):
that could access it, right, But she's also got control
of all the city's funds. The name of the account
was RSCDA Reserve Fund or the RSCDA account. The initials
stood for Reserve Sewer Capital Development Account, although no such
account actually existed for the city, and she did not
disclose the existence of the secret account. So I guess
(27:32):
she just Oh, it says Crundwell stole at least twenty
five thousand dollars from a separate Dixon Bank account for
its sister city program between eighty eight and ninety before
she started this big plan. So she stole twenty five
thousand dollars. She got away with it, and she was
like she had a reserve fund.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
She needed more. She's got her. Right.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
It reminds me of True Detective season two. A lot
of that with like the secret funding and owing to
other things.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
Right, that was that was the boring season.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Hey, there were some cool stuff in there too, Vince Vaughan,
let's go.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
He was fine. The masks, the crow mask was very cool.
But overall I thought it was you guys watched the
new episode.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Yes, yes, I'm into it.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
I like it.
Speaker 4 (28:18):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
I think it's weird how the internet hates women. Uh,
the criticism, I think it's great.
Speaker 4 (28:26):
I think people are you know, well, then Nick puts
a lot of fellow h has always been a bit
of a man's man, so I think a lot of
his fans are those types. So maybe they're mad that
he's not involved, but I'm excited about it.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
It's school six episodes contained.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
Love it an anthology series anyway, Really quickly, guys, small horses,
there's called miniature horses just for the please carry the
confused with pies. No different.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
So a quarter horse is actually a quarter of a horse, and.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
The left that's it's like one of those pieces.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Also, Matt, there's something really interesting that we see here
in mysterious, mysterious mysterious letter, which is the small town corruption. Right,
can we mention what is it? The townships is a
township like a county.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
I think that's right. They haven't. They haven't been like
you know, Jerry, York State and Massachusetts. There's sort of
an old New England y thing ish kind of.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
I think, yes. And this is our third link, thank
you so much mysteria. And this appears to be your
home county mysteria.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
Yeah, the McHenry County State's attorney office back in twenty
eighteen started investigating several townships. So townships must just be
communities within a county for again illegally using taxpayer money.
And apparently this is these are only two of like
(30:00):
at least three places, three townships in this one county
that are super crooked. I don't know, man, When we
say it's cold up in Illinois, it feels like it's
cold on a number of levels. Because you have to
be pretty ruthless to be elected to public office and
just violate trust like that.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
Right, Yeah, I'm trying to figure out what the actual
corruption here is or like what's being investigated. It looks like, well,
let me read this none to. Township also hired two
of Miller's sons, who somebody who's working directly with the township,
to full time positions, adding to its highway departments more
than two million dollars payroll, with hundreds of thousands more
(30:43):
in pensions and other benefits.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
So this looks like nepotism maybe and patting the patting
the books kind of like when organized crime will come
into a construction project.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
And yeah, yeah, let me talk about that. Everything I
learned about crime I learned from the Godfather movies and
the Sopranos. And sopranos they're always working on this esplanade
that's never finished. This never gets finished, and they're doing
they call them like no show jobs where you get paid,
you don't have to come. That's like, you know, that's
like a way you can kind of grease some palms.
(31:16):
I'm gonna give you like five no jobs this month.
And then also like by itemizing things that were never
actually purchased and billing for them and things like that
good way to hide money, guys.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
According to Illinois policy dot org, which is where this
link took us, there's also really a major problem with
like voter intimidation when there's a referendum coming up to
change you know, the ways of the local government, and
it looks like it's happening in a lot of townships there. Well,
(31:49):
let's just mention the other things that are in here.
We won't go over the link. So the last couple
of things you mentioned here mysteria. You said, finally, this
is probably more a case of incompetence than corruption. But
check out the police department's handling of the Ridder murder
back in nineteen eighty eight. So I don't know anything
about the Ridder murder. You've got a link to us
(32:10):
here to the Chicago Tribune about a man named Richard
Church who was wanted for the nineteen eighty eight murders
of Raymond Ritter and his wife, Ruth Ann. We're not
going to talk about it in detail at all right now,
but if you want to look it up you can.
We're going to check it out for you know, the
potentiality of a longer episode. I like that word. It's
(32:32):
not a word, but then it's a word.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
Oh it is.
Speaker 4 (32:35):
I didn't think it was.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
You said other things here told us more about that murder,
but we're gonna hold it for later. So thank you
so much, Mysterio letting us know about just how bad
Illinois could potentially be. But we're not passing judgment because
state corruption exists everywhere, not just in the US, not
just in Illinois.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
It's deeper than the pizza, right.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
It's I was gonna do deeper than hip hop thing,
but I can't so all right than it is, but
it's also deeper. So so thank you so much, Mysterious
for writing in. We'll be right back with more messages
from you.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
And we have returned for one more piece of listener
mail and something we like to call letters from home.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
This final piece of correspondence comes to us from someone
we're gonna call CJ because we did not get full
permission to use their name. This is kind of the
beginning of a rabbit hole. CJ sends us a message
about someone named Donna I and says, the timeline and
(33:51):
events leading up to this poor woman's disappearance are into
lining up. You all should look into it and do
an episode. I agree, CJ. This is also an unfolding event.
If you choose to do so, please let me know.
I'd love to hear it. If you don't trust links,
I understand, says CJ, and sends us a couple of
different links here and tells us a little bit about
(34:13):
the case. Her name, says CJ, was Donna. I e ye,
this happened very recently in Washington County, Missouri. I saw
her name because she was dumped off in the middle
of Mark Twain National Forest in the middle of the
night by a police officer in subfreezing temperatures with no
(34:33):
phone and has not been heard from since. This is
the first I have heard of this story. Have you
heard about this?
Speaker 4 (34:42):
No, I haven't heard of it either. Let's see, I'm
following the link now.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
Yeah, according to this, so this is happening now. There
was a story posted on Fox to Now Missouri affiliate
Just Yes yesterday, as we record, on January sixteenth, and
it seems that a Washington County sheriff named Zach Jacobson
(35:09):
had activated something called the Mineral Area Major Case Squad
to investigate what happened with this disappearance. A deputy allegedly
dropped Donna I off around eleven pm in the middle
of nowhere look up the Mark Twain National Forest. It
is not like a pedestrian walking space. And she has
(35:34):
not been seen since.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
Yeah, And there's a quote from her brother, I believe
just just speaking to her mental state of the time,
saying that she wasn't in any condition to make a
decision for herself. They informed me while we were standing
right where we are right now, she had been picked
up at the hospital by a Washington County female sheriff's deputy.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
And according to the reporting that we have seen, we
have a rough timeline of events. Donna I, at the
age of forty four years old, is a mother. When
she went missing, she left a hospital against her family's
wishes on Monday, the eighth of January. According to the family,
(36:19):
she has a medical condition that can affect her mobility
and mental health. They were informed by the sheriff's deputy
that she had been picked up from the hospital by
the sheriff. Apparently she was dropped off in the middle
of the forest. Apparently it's because they thought they were
(36:40):
dropping her off at the correct place. But there's so
many questions going on here. Even as we're recording right now,
Donna I's daughter in law, Leahne Miller, has organized a
civilian search party to try to find this missing person.
And this reminds me of the conversations we've had over
(37:02):
a series of years about one of the strangest, most
egregious things in the US, which is that we have
a lot of national parks, we have a lot of wilderness,
and as we record, there is no government agency that
keeps track of how many people go missing in parks
(37:22):
each year. Shout out to us missing for one one.
Speaker 4 (37:26):
Right, I'm a little confused. Was she discharged from the
hospital after Was this like a psychiatric hospital or was
this just like she was injured and she was discharged
And what led to the police being her only ride?
Speaker 3 (37:40):
It's still unclear. We know that we know that the
family wanted her to stay under care. We don't know
each of the steps that led to this disappearance yet,
which is why we're putting this out here now. Hopefully
by the time this her mail hits the air waves,
(38:03):
hopefully we'll be able to update with some sort of
good news. Hopefully she has been found. But it's stunning
just how easy it is to disappear in the US.
Speaker 4 (38:14):
Did you mention the bag that they found.
Speaker 3 (38:17):
Yeah, tell us about that. That's one of the primary
clues or at least bread problems.
Speaker 4 (38:22):
Oh, only to say that they did find it close
to her brother's house. So you gotta wonder, like, did
they drop her off so far that she had to
like trudge her way back? But if she did, why
was the bag there? And she didn't Like you would
think if she was dropped off in this remote middle
of nowhere that she would just have been lost. But
(38:44):
the connection with a piece of personal property of hers
to be so close to where she was trying to
get to, that's really interesting and head scratchy.
Speaker 3 (38:53):
Yeah, especially considering how brutal winter storms have been across
the US right now. You can make an argument that
there is no way to drop someone off in the
wild and reasonably expect that they will be able to survive.
It's a I saw a I saw some scuttle butts
(39:13):
and comments on various news forums, and one comment or
on the Saint Louis Reddit implies, and this is just
a person on the Internet implies that this drop off
was on purpose, meaning that whomever dropped her off there
(39:35):
meant for something bad to happen to her, assumed that
she would not survive the incredibly dangerous weather. Now again
we can't say any of that with any sort of certitude,
but of course, in the absence of transparency, speculation only
thrives totally.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
Yeah, now there's there's there's something what's the word something
is rotten then, so wherever this is, yeah, no, there's
definitely seems to be some details that are missing. And
of course our hope is with this individual being found
unscathed and perhaps they'll be an update soon and CJ.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
We're keeping this short because again hopefully we can return
with good news. We also, at least I want to
give everybody again the notice that misinformation and speculation thrives
so easily on weaponize social media. If you do have
any knowledge of Donna I's whereabouts, please do as Fox
(40:37):
News mentions, please do contact the authorities. Call nine to
one one if you know of anybody who's called missing
in a national park. The scary thing about the United
States is the onus is on you. It's on us
as members of the public to report this stuff because
otherwise people can simply go missing. So hopefully again we'll
(41:01):
come back. We'll come back with updates. As I said
at the top, this is a live story. I think
it'd be great for us to end today's show with
a little bit of a positive note while we're waiting
to hear the news on Donna I have. I love
doing this letters from home thing shared a shared a
(41:23):
thing recently from our pals over on Here's where it
gets crazy from a graphic novel artist named Ryan van
osdahal or astaal apologies, serf, we're mispronouncing your name. Ryan
put us in his graphic novel and it was so kind,
it was so neat. We have a couple panels of it, Nol.
(41:43):
Do you want to describe those panels?
Speaker 4 (41:45):
Oh? I mean yeah, it's just like a I guess
it's sort of like a D and D party type
situation where the three of us are I believe, halflings
that are on a wilderness journey of some kind. And
you'd be better at describing the content of the conversation,
but we were all personified delightfully.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
Nolan, the most talented weapons smith in the Seven Valleys,
Matthias proprietor, the best in on the Western Continent and
then they just call me Benjamin and I'm a halfling
and say some catchphrases at some point. Yeah, I agree
with you. It's got a Lord of the Rings meets
Lone Gunman and we're just very grateful again every time,
(42:31):
folks that you see fit to include us in your stories,
your creative acts. We receive a lot of amazing music
inspired by episodes, and I'm not blowing smoke a lot.
It's really good, like super impressive. So we just wanted
to shout this out. I reached out to the author
(42:52):
of this graphic novel and hopefully we'll be returning with
some information about how we can support this independent artist.
We love to see it. We'd also love to hear
from you with any other creative works that were in
some way inspired by this show, or maybe this is
what you listen to while you're painting, while you're working
(43:14):
on other things. We have your back, and it turns
out that a lot of our fellow conspiracy realists had
our back when we asked folks to check out our
sketch comedy on Instagram.
Speaker 4 (43:30):
Yeah you can call it that, because you can. Yeah,
we did it as it was a fun goofy silly
year in predictions or not year in predictions and predictions
for the new year of conspiracies that will definitely come
to fruish, come to pass, or be exposed. So do
check that out. You can, you can't do that. You
can be part of this fella conspiracy realists.
Speaker 3 (43:52):
Yeah, be the sketch comedy change you wish to see
in the world. I'm pretty sure famous person said that,
Edward James almost probably. Let's end this way. We're gonna
give a really quick cavalcade of names of people who
chimed in on our Mandela Effect video and said, hey,
(44:14):
strange news brought me here. So before we end the show,
let's give you that list of names.
Speaker 4 (44:21):
Here we go.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
Shout out to Jamie Kristen, Howard, Dan Bush, one oh one, Rocket,
Queen sixty eight, Classic Chaos Events, Sailor, Bright Beef Unit,
Economic Ziggie Less, VM Sprang, who says the overacting is superb,
Prince of Eco Park, c Bull nine. Alisa in her
thirties wrote me the Queen, Odinfelhammer, Vivick Rose, vivickz Rose,
Saturday Morning Cartoons, Penny Takes Pictures, Jay Font five eighty two,
(44:46):
Shawmas Campbell, Heinke, Johnny on the Rocks, Holly Quinn seventy seven,
Refreshing Art Studio, Dreesy Blaze, Joe's Misk No. One in particular,
that's a nice pun. Colin Ray ninety six, Style Masters, Blessed,
dim Fingers, Gerro's Space, d Doctor, Rusty Shack, Hollan Reed
ninety six for Shore Pizza, Chris sweety What eight four
eight eight see Bob ten Shadow, The Maximum, Cranberry for
(45:09):
twenty six oh three, d Cammi Kat and Noldre many
many others. But that's a long list of names. And
we promised, we promised to thank you for doing so,
but we we appreciate, We love the comments. We've got
more videos on the way. We would love to offer
you a meme in these trying times. And No, I
(45:29):
have to ask, since our pal Matt had to scoot
for some martial arts related adventures, what are some things
you're excited about with our social media and where can
people check it out?
Speaker 4 (45:42):
Oh boy, oh boy, I'm glad you asked, Ben. I'm
definitely excited about doing more silly, goofy videos in the
coming year. You can find those on the Internet, specifically
on our YouTube channel where they appear often as YouTube shorts.
You can also find us on Facebook where we have
a Facebook group. Here's where It's Crazy, which I believe
is where you might have been able to experience the
(46:04):
comic that we described firsthand. Isn't that right? Was that posted?
There was that sense you?
Speaker 3 (46:08):
Yes, that's great.
Speaker 4 (46:09):
There you go, so you can you can be a
part of that too, and also the red Headed StepShot
of the bunch x FK Twitter. We are conspiracy stuff
on all three of those. On Instagram and TikTok, where
you'll also find some content, we are conspiracy Stuff show.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
And if you don't sit the social meds, if your
dry January means no social media, we have your back.
You can call us directly on a telephonic device of
your choosing. All you have to do is cast the
following spell. Look at the numbers hit one eight, three
three STDWYTK. You will summon three minutes into the void
(46:48):
and be careful, folks. Sometimes the void answers back. All
we ask that you do. Tell us what's on your mind,
give yourself a cool nickname. Let us know if we
can use your name and or message on the air.
Most importantly, do not censor yourself. If you have more
to say than we'll fit in three minutes. If you
have links, if you have leads, if you have photos,
if you have sounds that you want to convey to us,
(47:10):
directly drop us a line. We read every single email
we get at our good old fashioned address where we.
Speaker 4 (47:17):
Are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (47:39):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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